A ticket to success:
Dennis Smith’s
“Excursion Fare.”
See Page 4B
Oregon daily emerald
art3 & entertainment
april 5, 1985
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Our picks for new music
Friday morning: You stretch
and yawn when the alarm
clock blares, trying hard to
convince yourself that
chemistry is important enough
to get out of bed for. You rub
your eyes and notice the sky,
which is not gray as it has
been for the past month, but is
instead a clear, pale blue.
You smile in spite of
yourself. Springtime is ex
hilarating. Spring, you think,
is the best of all seasons.
You dig through your trunk
in search of last year’s hiking
shorts. You put away your
sweaters and boots. Spring,
with its characteristic newness,
is a good time for you to take
up a new sport, wash your old
car, have a fling.
And listen to new music.
We music-lovers at The Fri
day Edition had time over spr
ing break to listen to a few
new albums and are offering
our impressions. The rest is up
to you.
Richard Thompson
“Across A Crowded Room”
PolyGram Records
Review by Kim Carlson
Solo guitarist and vocalist
Richard Thompson, who began
performing in the late ’60s, is
hailed as a musician's musi
cian. Although he has a
devoted cult following (Rolling
Stone’s Kurt Loder calls him
“one of the great buried
treasures of British rock”), the
mass public has not yet
become attached to him.
Perhaps the anonymity
strengthens Thompson’s
music, a blend of modern folk
and rock’n’roll with Celtic
roots — definitely not trendy
or compromising. However, if
everyone who listens to it likes
his new album as much as I
do, Thompson may soon be
heard on AM.
Most of the cuts on “Across
a Crowded Room” are ex
cellent; many reflect a love
gone bad. Loneliness, jealousy
and despair reign, yet we
never feel abandoned by hope.
Thompson, we know, has suf
fered through a recent divorce,
and yet he’s come out with his
humor intact, as evident in
“Little Blue Number.”
The upbeat “She Twists the
Knife Again” contrasts with
the moody “Ghost in the
Wind,” a slow song complete
with far-off bagpipes. And in
all the songs, Thompson’s
vocals are earnest and strong. 1
sense a very together human
being behind his music — a
rare talent in modern
rock’n’roll.
Animotion
“Animotion”
PolyGram Records
Review by Mike Duncan
A Syn-Pop, new wave
influenced band from New
York, Animotion has been get
ting airwave exposure with
“Obsession,” a song written
by lead vocalist and guitarist
Bill Wadhams. In the new
music genre, Animotion’s
sound is heavy guitar backed
with punchy keyboards and an
equally complementary vocal
track by lead vocalist Astrid
Plane. The rest of the music on
the album becomes very slick
and commercial, not consistent
with the innovative hit receiv
ing much airplay on both pop
radio and special new music
programs.
Overall, the effort is a bit on
the weak side. The rest of the
album acts as filler for the ex
pected hit ‘Obsession.”
The Vels
“Velocity”
PolyGram Records
Review by Mike Duncan
Clean, bright and contem
porary are just a few of the ad
jectives that come to mind
while listening to The Vels, a
three-member band whose
members perform vocals.
Continued on Page 2B